The Seapine View

If you haven’t discovered the list window enhancements added in TestTrack 2010.1, you definitely should check them out. There are a lot of time-saving improvements, including the ability to customize list window text appearance, shortcuts for working with subsets of items, and more available data.

Keep reading to learn more about the 2010.1 release enhancements, then watch the Working with TestTrack List Windows video for a tour of TestTrack list windows.

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A few months back (has it been over a  year already?), I posted a sample tool to search file contents in Surround SCM. Since that time, we have made two important additions to Surround SCM that I felt warranted a fresh approach to this tool.

I have re-written this tool with two major differences:

• I used the Surround SCM API instead of the CLI.
• The tool is designed to be launched by a custom menu in the Surround SCM client, giving you a more native feel.

There are other minor enhancements as well:

• Choose whether to do a case sensitive search or not.
• Choose whether to search recursively or not.
• Choose whether to save your password or not (in plain text).

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Turnout for the expedition has been crazy, we’ve had to order more jeeps and thought it would be a good time to upgrade the bi-weekly articles as well. Rather than the typical PDF every other week, you’ll be reading in style with the new Expedition eBook. It’s the same information in a more interactive format. Tips, tricks, and traps are better defined to help you on the journey toward greater agility. Check out the product backlog eBook, the foundation of your Agile success, and let us know if you agree.

Not participating in the Agile Expedition? You’re missing out!

While planning the TestTrack 2010.1 release, we talked to a variety of customers and soon realized that every team uses story points slightly differently. Most commonly, the teams use story points as a high-level estimate of the difficulty of a specific task or work item. TestTrack is flexible in allowing you to manage stories in a variety of ways, we’ve outlined a straight-forward process here to get you started. As you become familiar with using story points, feel free to tweak your TestTrack configuration to better meet the need of your team.

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TestTrack TCM Test Runner is a light-weight web client that allows testers to easily run manual tests and record results using a browser, eliminating the need to install and continuously update native TestTrack clients for QA team members who only need access to test runs.

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Thanks to everyone who joined us last week for the first session in our QA Wizard Pro Lunch and Learn series. The recording is now available if you missed the training session or want to watch it again. Q&A from the session is below.

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In Surround SCM, I tend to right-click branches, files, and repositories in the Source Tree view to perform actions. I quickly found that I only use a small number of the actions available by default on the shortcut menus, so I removed the commands I use less frequently and organized actions I do use in the order that makes sense for the way I work. You can customize your branch, repository, and file list shortcut menus in the Surround SCM user options.

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I was recently on-site with a customer. Aside from the usual tasks, like conducting training classes and configuring workflows, there was one interesting challenge. The customer wanted to integrate TestTrack RM and TestTrack TCM with ClearQuest. The customer did not want to use the ClearQuest API because they were using a very old version of ClearQuest and were planning on upgrading. The risk of changes in the API between the versions was high.

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If you’re new to QA Wizard Pro, or struggling to create scripts that reliably find and test controls, consider joining us in two weeks for a 30-minute “Understanding QA Wizard Pro Control Properties” webinar.

Register for Wednesday, June 30 at 1 pm EDT

Register for Thursday, July 1 at 10 am EDT (2 pm GMT)

Learn how to make the most of control properties to better identify and test controls:

• An explanation of control properties
• How to set up and use repository variables
• Guidelines for picking the best control properties
• How to more reliably find and validate controls with XPath and functions

In a recent article, we discussed the importance of backlogs. You may be wondering how to organize backlog items in TestTrack. You can use folders or custom fields as a way to “tag” or categorize stories, bugs, and other types of artifacts found in a typical backlog bucket.

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